Safe and Sound
by Sabrina-nee
Summary: Well, it's Natsu, every thing is bound to be an accident with Natsu around. Deaged!Gray GraLu GrayxLucy


**Safe and Sound**

 **Summary:** Well, it's Natsu, every thing is bound to be an accident with Natsu around. Deaged!Gray

 **Pairings:** Lucy Heartfillia x Gray Fullbuster

 **Disclaimer:** Fairy Tail® Hiro Mashima

 **Genre:** Romance, comedy/humor,

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"What just happened?" Lucy asked, dumbfounded to the scene which greeted her as soon as she'd entered the guild.

"Natsu was playing with Levy's spell book, accidentally activating one of the spells and hit Gray with a bright light. And then, Gray turned like _that_." Happy explained rather calmly like de-aging your guild mates is a normal thing to happen. Well, it's Natsu, every thing is bound to be an accident with Natsu around, but still... this is getting out of hand.

"Like that, you mean he suddenly turned Gray into a four year old kid?" Lucy lifted an eyebrow, unimpressed. She was gestured her hands to the said kid Gray hiding behind Erza, he was gripping the older lady's skirt while peeking from Erza's leg to have a quick look at Lucy.

"Who's the pretty onee-chan?" She heard Gray's voice while patting Erza's leg to attract the red head mage's attention. Lucy chose to ignore him and proceeded to scold her troublemaker pink haired best friend.

The red head only smile, "Why don't you introduce yourself to her?" Erza nudged the little kid to Lucy gently.

Gray fidgeted. Twisting his hands behind him and shuffled his feet, a gesture that Lucy found so adorable. "U-uhmm, hello... my name is Gray," he mumbled shyly, his cerulean eyes trailing on the ground.

Lucy, bemusedly, squatted down to face the timid kid, "Hi, Gray, I'm Lucy. It's a very nice to meet you." The blonde mage offered her hand, which Gray accepted and shook rather shyly.

"You're pretty," Gray muttered, his cheeks blooming in bright red color.

"Oh..." _Damn._ That caught Lucy off guard. She tried to hold down the blush and laughed softly at his compliments. "Haha. Thank you, that's a very nice thing to say."

Gray bashfully smile before jumping behind Erza's once again. Lucy grinned at Gray, and then turned her attention to Erza and Happy once again.

Natsu is already back being a menace once again, and is now fighting with Jet and Droy from the other side of the guild. Lucy doesn't have enough energy in her to bring Natsu back into the discussion (this is all his fault!), and he wouldn't be able to give an even ounce of sensible opinion anyways, so she ignored him for now.

"How are we going to turn him back?"

"Levy's looking through the spell book to reverse the effect," Erza answered. "In the meantime, I'm more worried about asking anyone to babysit kid Gray while he's like this," her one hand grazed through Gray's dark locks softly.

Gray's attention was diverted between the hovering Happy above his head and looking at Lucy.

Lucy tapped her chin, looking thoughtful. "Gray lives in an apartment by himself, so yeah, that's going to be a problem."

Erza gave her a meaning look, "So, I was thinking—,"

Lucy, sensing something odd from Erza, immediately cut the acting Master of Fairy Tail Guild and shook her head and hands simultaneously. "Oh no, Erza. I don't like that look. Nope, whatever you're thinking, stop thinking it. There is no way in he— *cough* uhh, _no way_ I'm going to babysit that Gray."

"Why not?" Erza creased her eyebrows. "You don't have any problem looking after Asuka before."

"Yeah, for four or five hours only!"

"Isn't it the same with Gray?"

"It _so_ not! I'll be looking after him for god knows how long!"

"And what's wrong with that? He seemed to be so attracted to you though."

Erza and Lucy automatically dropped their eyes to Gray.

The de-aged Ice Make Mage twitched when he sensed two sets of eyes on him, he blushed while he shyly peek a look at Lucy, and he blushed even more knowing that the pretty onee-chan was looking at him. He quickly jumped to grab Happy and cuddled the Exheed.

"I just... I..." her voice trailed off, while watching the embarrassed Gray hide his red face against Happy's fur.

Lucy is not dating Gray. Although they constantly flirt with each other, went couple of dinner from time to time and has sort of a mutual understanding, they never get the chance to put an official label in their relationship.

Don't get her wrong; she liked Gray.

A lot.

And it would be her pleasure to officially date their resident Ice-Make mage. But for now, both of them are seemed to be at ease with their no-string's attach relationship; that they do not bother to sit down and talk about it.

Also, maybe she's not showing enough affection to Gray. Lucy did subtly expressed her intention to go steady with Gray, but I guess he's too damn slow to realise all of her attempts.

Like how she always insisted to be paired up with Gray every mission as much as possible. How she subtly told Levy that she has an extra key to her apartment under the pot next to her apartment door, knowing full well that Gray could hear her. So, maybe he would stop sneaking inside her apartment through her window and enter her house using the door like a normal person. Sadly, though, Natsu heard her as well.

Or how she always have apple pie available in her apartment because it's Gray's favourite food.

Maybe she should have just directly confront Gray and ask him out herself? They are living in an era where it's okay for girls to ask the boys they fancy, right? But first, they should find a way to revert Gray back to his normal age. No matter how cute and cuddly Gray seemed to be as four years old, she still want her muscular and handsome Gray back.

"What about Juvia? She's more than willing to look after her 'Gray-sama'," Juvia is currently melting behind the pillar while she gushed over the kid Gray.

Erza raised an eyebrow, but then she shrugged her shoulders, "Sure, if you want kid Gray to be traumatised with Juvia's overly affection for him."

"Ugh..." _Touché._

"Lucy-nee, help!" Gray squealed.

Lucy was not prepared when little Gray suddenly jumped into her lower body and attached himself to her leg. She almost toppled backward with the impact of it if Erza was not there to prevent it from happening.

"What's wrong?" Lucy asked the trembling kid, who had her leg into a death grip. He said something, but she couldn't understand his words with his face completely buried against her leg.

"Natsu used his powers to Gray, and kind of spook the child?" Happy purred nervously as he hovered above the sobbing child.

"Dammit Natsu!" Lucy groaned and glared at her best friend, "Stop scaring the poor kid!"

"I'm sorry!" Natsu squeaked; his face turned into complete paleness as soon as he met Erza's death glare.

Erza was hot on Natsu's trail soon after.

 _Sigh._ Lucy is _so_ going to a veeery long vacation after this debacle.

"I think it's time to go home. We'll think about finding solution how to bring Gray back to normal tomorrow," she said. Lucy offered a hand to Gray, which the child automatically grasp with his two little hands.

"Night, Lucy. Night, Gray."

Lucy grunted a good bye to Happy, pulled Gray with her and blatantly ignored the way Natsu animatedly screamed for her help.

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The first thing Lucy did as soon as they've arrived in her apartment was to prepare quick dinner for kid Gray. With the child busy eating the spaghetti with meatballs she had cooked in the table, Lucy immediately raided her closet to look for clothes that would fit kid Gray.

She found a baggy t-shirt inside and decided that although the shirt would be a bit bigger for Gray's four year old body, it'd be enough for tonight. "You're small, I guess you'll fit in right into my old clothes, huh?" The smile on her lips disappeared when she noticed the sullen expression on Gray's petite face.

"Hey, what's wrong?"

"I miss Ur and Lyon." He sniffled.

Her heart yearned for the sobbing child. "Oh, sweetie. I know you do. You'll see them both soon, but in the mean time, you'll stay with me for awhile? Is that okay?"

"Uh-huh."

Lucy beamed at Gray. "Good, now go on and change your clothes. We'll have to buy few things for you tomorrow if, god forbid, Levy won't be able to find solution to bring you back to your normal age."

Gray nodded. Lucy helped the child into her old clothes. The mage resisted the urge to squeal in delight and to grab her lacrimal camera seeing Gray in her clothes. Just like she had predicted, the t-shirt is too big for him and he looked so adorable with him in an oversized t-shirt complete with one petite shoulder showing out.

"Good night, Gray," Lucy tucked kid Gray into her bed.

"Good night, Lucy-nee," Gray yawned, eyes fluttering as if he was trying his best keep them open. After few minutes of Lucy humming a soft song, Gray finally succumbed to sleep.

Lucy let out a tired breath and crawled under the blanket herself after turning the lampshade off. Tomorrow is going to be a long day, for sure.

After making sure that the child is properly covered by the blanket, Lucy turned her back against Gray; mentally preparing herself for tomorrow's craziness brought by the unfortunate situation they are in right now and by her rowdy guild mates.

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"Got any luck?" Erza inquired the blonde mage.

After the early morning shopping of Gray and Lucy, to buy him few clothes, toys and all other things necessary for toddlers like him, Lucy was with Levy in the private library of their guild for almost half day. They are both trying to research for a way to revert their de-aged guild mate back to his original self.

On the other hand, Gray has been under the watchful eyes of their guild mates, especially Erza, Natsu and Happy. Thankfully he gets along with everyone, although he was reluctant of letting Lucy go at first. Despite their 'rivalry' Natsu was eager to look after Gray, but not without thorough scolding from Lucy about scaring the child using his magical power.

"I guess so. Levy said that the spell would eventually disappear in few days."

"So, all we could do is wait for it to dispel on its own?"

"Seems like it."

"Lucy-nee!" Gray bellowed, flailing one hand above his head. "Come and look! I draw you!" He excitedly gestured to the papers scattered on the table.

Lucy leaned towards the drawing, "Oh wow, they're all look great!"

Gray beamed proudly at Lucy's praise. He handed on paper to Lucy. "This is you and me!"

Lucy accepted the paper and smoothed Gray's hair affectionately. She smiled at him and said, "Aww thank you. How about you bring them and we'll put it on the fridge with your other drawings?"

"Yes! Can we do that, please?"

"Of course. Let's clean up and go home okay?"

"Okay!" Gray excitedly started collected his drawings with the help of Lucy.

Spotting Erza giving her a smug grin, Lucy rolled her eyes in response. "What?"

"For someone who claimed to be not suitable as Gray's babysitter, you sure are getting all out of making sure he's comfortable and happy," Erza teased.

"Ugh, please don't tease me,"Lucy groaned, more so because of embarrassment rather than annoyance. "Say goodbye to Erza, Gray."

Gray waved at Erza. "Bye, Erza-nee!" He automatically grab Lucy's one hand and pulled the young lady towards the door.

He was telling Lucy about his day with the other guild mates rather energetically. Lucy, with a fond smile etched across her lips, listened attentively to Gray.

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"Gray..?" Lucy murmured sleepily. She rubbed the drowsiness from her half lidded eyes as she tried to push herself from the comfort of her pillow. "What's wrong, sweetheart?" She sat right up, finally completely awake as soon as she felt the trembling body of Gray underneath the comforter.

Gray, somehow, crawled under the blanket and crouched under it. He's shaking, and she could hear faint sobs from him. Lucy gently pulled the blanket off and revealed the frightened child. Lucy felt her heart crushed.

The young boy immediately dive right into Lucy's arms and buried his face against the young lady's shoulder. "Bad dream..." he murmured, obviously shaken by the nightmare. "There was a big monster, everyone is screaming and the whole place is on fire," Gray continued to trembled while Lucy attempted to sooth him by rubbing his back gently.

"Oh, honey," she whispered softly into his ear. The blonde mage wondered if Gray is talking about the night Deloria's rampage in Gray's childhood hometown, that claimed the lives of many villagers including his parents. "Shhh... nobody is going to hurt you. I promise."

"Don't leave, okay?" Gray hiccuped.

Lucy planted a soft kiss on the crown of his head before she manoeuvred him under the blanket again. "I'm not going anywhere. I'll always be with you, Gray," she responded softly. Lucy helped Gray lay back to the bed, keeping the frightened child close to her.

"'Love you, Lucy-nee..." Gray mumbled sleepily against Lucy's bosom and unconsciously snuggled closer to her.

"I love you, too, Gray," Lucy whispered into his forehead after placing a soft kiss on it. Gray probably won't remember when returned to his original age, right? Lucy sighed and buried her flustered face in Gray's soft black hair.

After only few seconds, Gray and Lucy were pulled back into sleep.

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Lucy awoke with birds chirping outside her window and sunlight steaming through the curtains. She yawned widely as she was stretching her arms and legs.

"Good morning."

Lucy jerked her head to her side, where she distinctly remembered placing the young Gray last night. But instead of young Gray, a very much young adult version of him (or more like the original version) lyin down on his side, facing Lucy; one arm propped against the pillow with his hand supporting his head.

"G-Gray! You're back to your original self!"

"Yeah."

Last night, young Gray insisted of wearing the old t-shirt he used on his first day as his official pyjamas. He said it makes him feel safe. Lucy didn't have a heart to stop him so she just shrugged her shoulders and let him be.

Seeing the old (or the right age Gray) Gray wearing her clothes is kind of embarrassing to watch. Lucy groaned as she pushed herself upright, her travelled from her face to her hair; smoothing her awful bed hair down. She reluctantly glance back to Gray, who is now sitting up as well, "Err... do you... remember anything?"

Gray stared at her at first, that seconds with their eyes connected made Lucy's heart pounded hard and loud.

"Yes," he answered, after what Lucy felt like an eternity.

"Oh god," Lucy mumbled into her palm, she wanted to find a cave she could crawl into so she could hide in embarrassment.

"And I don't like it that my young self get to say the words first before _me_." She heard Gray said, she was too flustered that she missed to notice the way Gray's blue eyes softened in fondness and affection while looking at her.

"Words?"

"I love you, too, Lucy." Lucy snapped her head back to Gray, who is now leaning forward to her. He lifted his one hand to grazed his finger tips on Lucy's cheek. The urge to just wrap his arms around Lucy was too much for him to handle, so Gray decided to skip all the drama and speeches and went directly to, "Be my girlfriend?" Gray thinks that he had waited long enough already.

Years of hiding his true feelings to this special lady, that he considered as one of his best friends, afraid that confessing prematurely would destroy the friendship that they've built together, but right now, screw everything, right now all Gray wanted is come out clean and scream on top of his lungs that he's been in love with Lucy long time ago.

Lucy blinked.

Blinked once again.

Before finally, realisation struck her down. She dove right into Gray's chest and squealed and excited, "YES!"

Gray laughed but welcome Lucy in his arms wholeheartedly. He kissed her on her forehead and mouthed a 'thank you' against it.

"I love you so much, Lucy. I'm going to keep you safe, I promised."

Lucy snuggled closer, "I love you, too, Gray."

Gray looked down at Lucy, blue eyes meeting the caramel ones, Gray slowly leaned down to capture her lips, Lucy meeting his halfway.

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 _Lame title, I know :( and un-beta'ed once again. Excuse all the mistakes . One of my patients was telling me their love story and got inspired to write. No, her husband did not turn into a a kid lol but they married to different spouses, one got separated from his wife after 10 years of marriage while the other became a widow with 4 kids. Years later they found each other again, fell in love again, and now living a happy life through sickness and in health, literally because the wife is currently my dialysis patient. I want a boyfriend!_


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